Ask Congressman Boucher About Internet Regulations 147
U.S.Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) has co-sponsored an anti-spamming bill, questioned some of the DMCA, and has been asked by at least one online notable to think about a tax credit for Open Source coders. He's also a member of the Congressional Internet Caucus. We can think of no federal lawmaker more qualified to give us insight into the nitty-gritty of the legislative process, especially as it relates to the Internet. Our usual interview rules apply: post your questions below (one question per post, please), we'll forward 10 - 12 of the highest-moderated ones to Rep. Boucher, and will post his answers next week.
How do you feel about... (Score:1)
Seriously, this is not a troll.
Thank you!
Rearranging Deck Chairs On The Titanic? (Score:1)
When will reps catch up with the lobbies? (Score:5)
The internet is quite possibly THE most cost effective way a representative has to reach their constituents, yet most hardly use it as more than a way to publish their contact information. If a rep wanted to be truly accountable, they could publish a few words about their recent votes, and why they feel they made the best decision possible for their district/state/etc. In my opinion, a representative who made decisions that were really in the best interest of their constituents - and repeatedly told them WHY those decisions where in their best interests - would be nearly impossible to defeat in reelection, yet most representatives don't do this.
My questions for you are these: Why do you feel most representatives aren't making more use of the internet to stay close to their constituents, what do you see being necessary to change this, and when do you think we can expect to see change come about?
--
Re:Taxes and the Internet (Score:1)
This is no different than a sales and use tax paid on an in-state purchase. If a retailer does not exist within your state, then you should not pay that retailer any tax. States like Wisconsin and Ohio have recently implemented voluntary reporting of sales and use taxes owed on out-of-state purchases. This is because the internet has greatly increased the number of purchases on which no sales and use tax is paid to the state in which the product will be used. However, the voluntary reporting of the sales tax does not only apply to internet sales. It also applies to mail-order and phone-order sales.
Regarding nomenclature, voluntary and trust taxes have existed for a long time. The sales and use tax charged by retailers is a trust tax, because consumers and the state are trusting retailers to report and pay the required tax in a timely manner.
Re:Taxes and the Internet (Score:1)
this would only be a tax on interstate commerce if the sales and use tax applied only to commerce from other states, and not commerce within ohio. it is, however, merely an effort to collect taxes for items bought on which a sales and use tax has not already been collected
Corporatism (Score:5)
Technology is a great opportunity to set us free, as people, across the world. Why does our government of the people, for the people, by the people pass laws that protect corporate interest (DMCA, and UCITA on the state level)? And why isn't more done to promote public participation in discussion of this kind of legislation?
Sorry for the loaded questions-- but it does *seem* the government favors business over personal freedom.
- tony
Umm.. no.. (Score:1)
The thinking is that medics come for the injured and, then you shoot them with real guns...
The thinking is that by injuring an enemy soldier rather than killing him, you not only take him out of the fight, but you also force the enemy to expend resources (i.e. 2 people to carry him away, medical supplies, doctors) to care for him.
Re:Why (Score:1)
I seriously hope that this very loaded question doens't make the cut. I'm not sure what Mr. Boucher's opinions are on gun issues, but I would rather keep the discussion on the topic of IP and Internet regulation rather than going off into more controversial and less productive topics.
Re:Role of Government (Score:2)
It seems like this suggestion punishes companies and individuals who have chosen a business model which is self-sustaining by promoting unfair marketplace competition.
It does no such thing. It simply rewards the contributions made by individuals and corporations to the public. Even if, by providing this benefit to the public, it lessens their ability to make a profit, I still see nothing wrong with the tax credit. The tax credit and the benefit to the public cancel each other out. What is left is a business that may be only marginally profitable, or not profitable at all, but that's not a problem. Hell, our tax dollars are used to fund private research and whatnot all the time. Why not use that money for something that we will actually see a return on?
Apples and Oranges... (Score:2)
Fixing one guy's car is not the same as coding a software package that can be used by millions. If Bob created new car parts through some mystical means that required only minimal overhead costs and his own time, but could be given to everyone who wanted them, then I think a tax credit might be in order.
It's VERY relevant... (Score:2)
I think it's an extremely relevant topic. This isn't just about Napster, that's a very small-picture view of things.
I think one of the main reasons that many people don't respect copyright anymore is because they see it for what it has become, a tool for corporations to retain perpetual control over information and creative works. The public has no interest in that, and it was not the intent of copyright to allow such a thing. If the government is going to enforce an artificial and arbitrary period of control over information, there had better be a public benefit from it. That benefit has been legislated out of existence. People are right to be pissed off about that. I think people understand that copyright, as it exists today, is wrong, even if they don't consciously know exactly why. That's why millions of people don't seem to have any moral qualms about downloading copyrighted music.
Personally, I'd like to be able to contribute directly to the artist (or at least a lot more directly). I buy CDs from artists on MP3.com. I go to concerts and buy their merchandise. It's not the artists I have a problem with. It's the exploitive and overly controlling recording industry that I have a problem with.
They've got their system established where they control the radio airwaves through bribes to the stations to get the music they're promoting played more. Radio stations can't play whatever they want anymore. The creativity is gone. Now it's all about the money. Stations have to make the money to stay competitive. The record labels have the money. The stations sell out to the record labels or they die. The big station owners managed to all but kill the FCC's plan to allow low-powered stations to exist and maybe bring us something other than the same 20-30 songs in constant rotation. There is still some hope that the low-powered stations will eventually get their chance, but they are facing a tough battle.
In the end, what it comes down to is a decision about who gets to control information, creative works, and culture, and how long and how much they get to control them. If copyright were reduced to its original 14 year term, perhaps people would have more respect for it. I know I would. As it stands today, with copyrights lasting longer than a human life, they might as well be perpetual. Nothing has transitioned into the public domain in decades. The public is not benefitting. As long as people recognize that copyrights exist like this because of corporate lobbying and no longer serve the public, they will not feel any guilt or remorse for violating those copyrights. If it's done on a large enough scale (Napster scale), this kind of civil disobedience could eventually help change the laws of this country. Let's just hope that the people of this country still have the power to stand up to the corporations of this country.
Hope this one makes the cut... (Score:2)
Great question. I've wondered it myself quite a few times. I've always assumed the answer was that the reps really don't want to explain why they vote the way they do. It's easier to just kiss babies, shake hands, and spew rhetoric to get reelected than to actually be accountable for how you vote. Then there's the fact that some legislation, even important legislation (case in point, the DMCA) are passed by a voice vote, with no record left of who voted which way for the law. I think that is positively criminal, but it happens. I'd like to see something done about that.
Re:My related question... (Score:2)
The problem is not that someone will copyright it after it becomes public domain in the US, the problem is that if the US has a shorter term length than Europe, nobody will copyright works in the US. They'll copyright them in Europe instead. This creates a standoff between the US and Europe. The US can say, "We only honor copyrights for 14 years." Then the EU says, "Well if you won't honor our copyrights for our full 90 year (for example) term, then we just won't enforce US copyrights here at all!" Then the US says, "Fine, then we won't enforce EU copyrights here either!" Then we end up with a really ugly situation. What needs to happen is that we need to convince our government to convince other governments that copyrights last too long now and that we should have a much shorter term for them. Unfortunately, with so much money at stake, I fear the kinds of heinous crimes that will probably be committed to prevent such a thing from happening.
Re:Role of Government (Score:2)
Look, you're not subsidising the business. Open Source software that is freely available to the public is a good thing, regardless of whether or not a company finds a way to profit from it. A company gets a tax credit for donating computers, money, etc, to a charity. Why not for donating a software program to the public? It doesn't necessarily mean the money will have to be taken from someone else either. That's up to the government, and ultimately us as voters, right? I'm sure we'll all grieve that some Senators' pet projects will have to find funding elsewhere, but we'll survive.
My related question... (Score:5)
As you know, copyright term lengths have grown incredibly since they were first established. Given that copyright was intended to benefit the public by making more works available to the public, how can a term length longer than most human lives be justified? Isn't this basically as bad as a perpetual copyright, especially in light of the fact that every time the leading edge of copyrighted works are about to become public domain, major copyright holders lobby Congress to extend the terms again, even retroactively?
Re:Taking back the 'Net (Score:2)
Re:Why (Score:2)
- apparently, you've never heard of "supressive fire".
Re:why!! ill TELL you why (Score:2)
I guess the council of nicea is probably looking at some hard time in the hot room.
Re:is government the answer? (Score:1)
did you know the federal budget allocates enough money to federal highway upkeep each year to pay to pave a single lane of each Interstate in GOLD??)
I had no idea.
So I went to the Federal Highway Administration's web site (www.fwha.dot.gov) and found out that there are 43,000 miles of interstate they maintain, and they have a budget of $4.073 billion dollars allocated for interstate maintenance. So I did a little calculation.
Assumptions:
A lane is ten feet wide.
Everyone on the gold-paving project is working for free. The entire infrastructure costs nothing. The *only* cost is the cost of the raw materials (i.e., gold).
Values:
Cost of gold: $260/oz
Miles of interstate: 43000
Dollars available: 4073000000
43000 mi (of highway) * 5280 (feet per mi.) * 12 (in per ft) * 2.54 (cm per in) * 10 (feet wide lane) * 12 (in per ft) * 2.54 (cm per in) = approximately 2109270620160 square centimeters total in the Interstate Highway System
4073000000 (budget) * (1/260) (oz per $) * 480 (g per oz) * (1/19.3) (cc per g) = 389605415.811 (cc)
389605415.811 (c^3) / 2109270620160 (cm^2) = .00018471096 cm thick
Yes, folks, that is about two millionths of a meter thick. Damn those wasted dollars.
Re:-1, Spelling Flame (Score:1)
Role of Government (Score:2)
In light of the recent relevations that many of these Open Source companies are not now, nor appear to ever, be profitable. It seems like this suggestion punishes companies and individuals who have chosen a business model which is self-sustaining by promoting unfair marketplace competition.
Is it really the goal of the Federal Government to pick winners and losers in the market place?
Re:Role of Government (Score:2)
Money doesn't grow on trees, it comes from taxes. If you give a tax credit to one person, that just means some other person has to pay that much more in taxes.
The Government should not be in the role of picking winners and losers in the marketplace.
If Open Source really provided value, it would be a viable alternative in the marketplace without having to be subsidised by my tax dollars.
DMCA and Fair Use? (Score:1)
I have also noticed that the Cable companies would like to restrict cable subscribers from taping shows that they would like to see. How are they getting by with this considering Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios.
So my question is this: What do you think about the new abilies of the TV studios, Movie Studios and Recording Studios to control when/how/where we can view the items that we purchased and how do most of your colleagues feel about this?
Re:It sounds like Ohio is violating the Federal La (Score:1)
--
Constitutionality (Score:5)
The problem with this, apart from its mockery of "congress shall make no law...", is that it leaves the law in limbo for the months or years that it can take to get a final judicial ruling on the law's constitutionality. We won't have final word on which bits of the DMCA pass constitutional muster, for instance, for quite some time, even though a lot of us have projects or even livelihoods that depend on that outcome.
What can we do to discourage congress from ignoring the Constitutional import of its actions and leaving us in legal limbo waiting for the courts? What sorts of arguments can convince ppolitical parties and elected officials to listen to the Constitution as much as they listen to their donors and constituents?
--G
Avoid Hyperbole. (Score:3)
To call Carl Malamud's proposed tax credit a subsidy is a bit of hyperbole, and clearly intended to inflame the community. Nevertheless, it's important to set the record straight.
The tax credit Carl proposes doesn't subsidize open-source coders any more than the various deductions offered to business, large and small, subsidize them. It's a deduction. If it passed, and I spent a thousand dollars ($1000) on a computer to use in open-source coding, I wouldn't have to pay taxes on that thousand dollars. Depending on my tax bracket, in order to buy that computer without being able to deduct its cost, I might have to make up to fourteen-hundred dollars ($1400), just so I can give a thousand ($1000) to the computer company and four-hundred ($400) to Uncle Sam.
Now, Uncle Sam isn't giving me that four-hundred dollars. He's just agreeing not to take it from me as long as I'm using the money for open-source work.
This whole idea is important because many open-source coders don't want the hassle or overhead of creating a business entity just to be able to deduct the expenses involved in delivering code to the community. I, for example, would not benefit from this credit at all, because I already have a sole-proprietorship established under which I do all of my consulting and open-source work. All Carl's proposal does is extend what people like me can do to ordinary folks who just want to write code and don't care about generating income and revenue from it.
Re:Be honest about this one... (Score:1)
Re:Constitutionality (Score:1)
Re:Taxes and the Internet (Score:2)
Taxes and the Internet (Score:4)
Even though this tax is "Voluntary" I have been informed by my accountant that I have to pay this tax, reguardless. Thereby, my state is taxing purchases that were made "out of state" as it were.
My question is, how do you feel about taxation of the internet, specifically "Voluntary" ones like the State of Ohio has implemented?
A note on style... (Score:1)
Hi yourself, george, ethereal here.
Perhaps if you didn't WRITE in a collection of words that ARE randomly all caps or ALL LOWERCASE, and avoided THE ad hominem attacks, YOU would be more likely to not appear to be a TROLL.
Thanks! (p.s. damning the Bible probably isn't scriptural either, george :)
Contact your representative... (Score:2)
Why in your opinion are dead trees still a more viable method of getting heard by representatives and senators?
This subject was addressed to some extent in a recent article here on slashdot [slashdot.org]
Nit Picking (Score:2)
Also, I don't believe that IBM kept others from using EBCDIC.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Free Speech and Computer Code (Score:1)
I'm guessing that not too many people take you seriously if you sprinkle "egg-sucking" into your political rants.
The DMCA is an atrocity and I'll happily back anyone who has the nerve to to stand up to the corporations that are trying to take this country over.
Also, you might want to do some research [aclu.org] before you sing praises to John Warner. You'll note that John Warner voted for the "Flag Desecration Amendment [aclu.org]", and obvious attempt to even further limit free speech in this country by limiting criticism of the United States. You will note that Rick Boucher did not vote for this Amendment.
Maybe you should write a letter to Warner and ask him to start standing up for your rights once in a while instead of doing his best to pass legislation to take them away.
Re:Free Speech and Computer Code (Score:2)
Sure, code is just instructions, but so are recipes, and I haven't seen any cooking books banned recently. Books about step-by-step drug manufacture, lock picking, and weapon creation are protected by free speech laws as well, and these books are no more than instruction sets.
Instructions are legal, even if following them isn't.
As far as the DMCA is concerned source code is NOT a creative work
Look at who is backing this law, it sure isn't programmers! The intent of this law, I believe, is clearly biased toward large corporations and serves their interests at the cost of the people's freedom. Of course the DMCA doesn't recognize source code as a creative work, it doesn't benefit them to do so.
Big money has perverted the government's intentions to give copyright holders some protection on the Internet into a law creating a full-blown digital police state without even marginal protection for the software infrastructure that holds it all together.
That is the problem with the DMCA.
Free Speech and Computer Code (Score:5)
I applaude your questioning of some of the facets of the DMCA, and as a resident of Virginia, I am quite proud that an elected official from my state is one of the first to question these overly restrictive copyright laws. Your fight for the people will not go unnoticed.
I have a question pertaining to uncompiled code and freedom of speech. My understanding is that source code is just language, like that of an essay or poem. Essays and poems cannot (for the most part) be "banned" by the government as they are First Amendment protected speech.
How is it that high-powered organizations like the MPAA have won lawsuits against web sites that have done nothing more than make a link to uncompiled code? Aren't these sites and the programmers that wrote the code protected under First Amendment free speech?
Thank you for your time, efforts, and hopefully your answer.
Re:Why (Score:1)
Hey...technically you could kill a man with a DVD, although that could get pretty messy.
Re:MOD THIS UP (Score:1)
Re:How to get your peers to reply to emails... (Score:2)
Simple: Get Slashdot to interview them, post a message, and get it moderated up to 5.
--
How can we help get rid of the DMCA? (Score:1)
Re:Why (Score:2)
Perhaps that's part of it, but I think the biggest motivator in the historical adoption of assault weapons is the lowered minimum standard for the quality and training of the soldier who uses them. During the latter part of WWII lots of countries were dredging the bottom of their manpower reserves and having to rush the draftees to the front without sufficient training, so there was lots of appeal to the idea of a weapon that just sprays lead everywhere rather than requiring an elevated degree of marksmanship in the bearer.
--
Getting our opinion known (Score:1)
Re:Be honest about this one... (Score:2)
Be honest about this one... (Score:4)
Thanks!
Brent Ozar
Re:Constitutionality (Score:1)
What can non-US citizens do? (Score:5)
Re:My related question... (Score:2)
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Taking back the 'Net (Score:2)
Balancing Copyright & Consumer Interests (Score:5)
/.
Re:How to Get Representatives to Listen? (Score:2)
Stop the erosion of our "fair use" rights! (Score:5)
1. The Legislature recently passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, extended copyrights to far beyond the "limited times" mentioned in the Constitution. This act does not "promote... useful arts"; it promotes individual gains. Disney has borrowed greatly from the Public Domain and returned nothing. Bach's heirs didn't expect to be rich from their father's work; they wrote their own. Art and science used to belong to the people (after 28 years). Now it belongs only to the richest corporations. No works produced after 1910 have entered the public domain because the term keeps getting extended. A society with
no Public Domain art is bankrupt.
2. The Courts have recently upheld the portions of the DMCA that prohibit "circumvention devices". In effect, these provisions remove our "fair use" rights under copyright law to produce critical reviews, parodies, and scholarly derivative works. There is also no provision for the release of protected works when the copyright expires.
3. The FCC (part of the Executive Branch) has approved the use of "content protection" as part of the broadcast HDTV specification. This ruling destroys the public right to record broadcasts and view them at our leisure (a right upheld by the Supreme Court in the Betamax case).
Is seems that all three branches of our government have turned against us. What can we do take back our rights under copyright law, without breaking the law?
--
Re:Taking back the 'Net (Score:2)
"I'm not a bitch, I just play one on
DMCA issues (Score:5)
Secondly, you support the "fair use doctrine" and also feel that methods to circumvent protection measures such as CSS should not be criminalized; at least in as much as the goal of such circumvention is within the spectrum of fair use. You also support watermarking and other methods to protect the copyrights of digital media with the reservation that the rights of home recording rights are not impeded.
However, both digital (CSS) and traditional analog (macrovision) protection schemes are fallible. Clever individuals can circumvent them, either for illicit purposes or not. Decriminalizing methods to circumvent these "protection schemes" does little to protect the copyright holder's interest outside the scope of current law (not in the DMCA). Would your proposed amendments to the DMCA protect from prosecution *any* individual who devised a circumvention method (for any purpose) and distributed it freely. A prime example of this is software such as the DeCSS.
This is of course, assuming they are not guilty of other infractions that do not fall within the scope of the DMCA with regard to creating or distributing a circumvention method.
Spyky
Copyright and Patent (Score:4)
Thank you for your time.
Re:why US regulation? (Score:2)
they don't... what they do is they decide on how the internet can be used within the United States...
The vast majority of the readers of slashdot are in the US, so its quite relevant to ask questions of a man who has direct influence on what we can and can't do in the united states.
Besides, whether you like it or not, if one country starts making laws about how to regulate the internet, other countries may very well take the success or failure of those initiatives into account when they make their own laws... so this should be relevant to you too.
TAX CREDIT == SUBSIDY (Score:2)
Re:Another take (Score:2)
MOD THIS UP (Score:2)
I hope this sort of question makes it to the "cut list" for this interview!
Where's the foundation? (Score:4)
Re:Another take (Score:2)
An individual has the right to the pursuit of happiness and if that path leads him to create a corporation with like minded individuals, so be it. But whether or not they get paid is purely in the hands of fate.
It's thinking like this that lets people roll over & play dead when corporations demand compensation for some new law that would affect their business. Do we let hit-men sue the government for making their line of work illegal?
Re:Protecting our rights (Score:2)
Re:Copyright laws (Score:2)
Re:Nit Picking (Score:2)
Does anybody remember back before the MS monopoly to an example of IBM making proprietary protocols/standards/software to lock-in customers? The PS/2 hardware and it's proprietary bus (I forget the name of the bus) is a great example of them trying to shutdown the Open PC Hardware revolution and regain their monopoly -- but that tactic didn't work.
I need a good example.
Will their ever be competition in software? (Score:4)
The prevailing software business model is unique with it's "proprietary lock-in". Assuring lack of competition in software applications.
Proprietary formats, standards, protocols, etc... lead to the "software vendor lock-in". Microsoft didn't invent this... they were doing ASCII along with everyone else when IBM was doing EBCDIC (Later, of course, MS with their monopoly would do TrueType while everybody else had already standardized to Postscript). They're also not the only software vendor to do this: every Unix consortium is comprised of vendors using one hand to shake, the other to stab in the back (trying to get others to abide by the standard, while they proprietarily create modifications to the standard).
Open source has a chance to create a level, standards based, playing field. Allowing true, balanced, competition.
When Compaq, and others, reverse engineered the IBM PC Bios, the PC revolution was ignited: anybody could make a motherboard or an adapter card, or memory (The MS OS and the Intel CPU were the only proprietary pieces left atop this open hardware platform). The prices came down, the innovation moved at record pace.
But, even if the current "proprietary lock-in" paradigm ends, the patent office, in granting frivilous software patents, may be providing the next lock-in paradigm.
Can and will congress legislate and mandate the proper regulations aimed at the software industry to end the "proprietary lock-in" paradigm (this also means modifying the DMCA to omit those portions that protect the lock-in) and assure that there are sufficient restrictions in the patent laws to limit the number and scope of software patents?
Re:My related question... (Score:2)
Hear, hear! (Score:2)
This is not merely a matter of defending old-economy business models in the internet era; code-as-speech can be regarded a baseline necessity for the defense of our political freedoms in future.
NOT copy (Score:3)
Haven't we got enough trouble with the semantics of this issue already?
Re:Why (Score:2)
Grow up, you shouldn't be trusted with moderator points.
/. hypocrisy (Score:2)
No questions for the Rep. I'll leave that to the US folks.
How to Get Representatives to Listen? (Score:5)
Votes are sometimes NOT a matter of public record (Score:3)
While representatives' votes are certainly a matter of public record
Not for an anonymous voice vote; both the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?] [everything2.com] and the DMCA were passed this way [everything2.com]. What are they supposed to record publicly, the decibel levels of the ayes and nays?
All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.
Why (Score:5)
--
Re:Not designed to kill???? (Score:2)
The 7.62, .30-06, 7MM, and the similar WWI - era rifle calibers were designed to allow accurate aimed fire out to 1000 Meters. This is far more range than is neccessary according to modern tactical doctrine. By using a smaller-caliber round that is effective out to 200m, an infantryman can carry FAR more ammo (and other gear) due to the lighter weight of both the rifle and ammunition. This is the real reason the US adopted the 5.56mm round. The wound characteristics it produces was a negligible deciding factor in the adoption of the M-16 as the official US service rifle. Note that the US still uses 7.62 for sniper rifles, machine guns, and any other application where 1000m range is needed.
Personally, I prefer the 7.62 russian (short) for civilan use. It has better range and stopping power than the 5.56 NATO. It's good for medium size game (deer) and ammo is pretty cheap, allowing for frequent practice. The Remington Mini-30 is a very nice all-purpose rifle.
Re:Not designed to kill???? (Score:2)
Let us know (Score:3)
________
Re:Internet Taxation (Score:2)
Of course they should. A purchase made on the internet is fundamentally no different than a purchase made via mail order or over the phone.
Since you did the quote thing on 'protections', maybe you're wondering if those 'protections' are fair/legal/constitutional/whatever... ?
--
is government the answer? (Score:2)
If you could be so kind to name a single piece of legislation that solved the problems it was meant to address and didn't create others...
What's that? You can't?
Any time government has gotten involved with ANYTHING from pollution, currency, privacy, even the size of holes in Swiss cheese, no net good has resulted.
The government can't deliver our mail on time, can't educate our children, can't keep the roads in good condition (did you know the federal budget allocates enough money to federal highway upkeep each year to pay to pave a single lane of each Interstate in GOLD??) - why would anyone in their right mind trust them to "regulate" the internet, open source, et. al. ??
The only thing the politicians are good at is in being politicians - they don't have the experience or knowledge necessary to get involved with any aspect of the internet.
Christ, Al Gore thinks he invented it, the court system seems to think that file sharing "technologies" are going to put authors / artists out of business (why didn't the Xerox machine, VCR, tape deck, CDR, or even the pencil, for that matter, put these people out of business? They ADAPTED!) and Busch decided he's not going to even use e-mail because of an obvious violation of the fourth amendment...
Let's keep the government out of our lives and our paychecks (I for one am sick of having a portion of my paycheck allocated to fighting and supporting people on different sides of the same issue - it happens with tobacco, the EPA, the IRS etc.)
The D's and R's have simply been bickering over who gets to choose how your money is spent. Screw them both - vote Libertarian
Internet and legislation (Score:4)
Protecting our rights (Score:5)
Redundant? (Score:2)
First of all, all three were written within two minutes, so it was unintentional, but that is beside the point.
<rant> One post asks how the internet will affect politics considering that they ignore most emails, which, in my opinion, is a whole new question, and the other one asks how the congressman handles the flood of emails he gets. My question asks how my email will get in front of him. That's what I'd really like to know, and from the previous article yesterday, I think that's what the
I don't care if the vaguely similar post gets asked and mine doesn't, but could you include some of my questions that are on the same line and are more specific?
Especially: what is the best way to write to our congressmen to get our perspective read and to receive a prompt reply?
Honestly, I think all three should be merged into a complex question requiring a nice, solid reply from the congressman.
--
How to get your peers to reply to emails... (Score:4)
My question is what is the best way to write to our congressmen to get our perspective read and to receive a prompt reply? Is it better to write a letter, or is email finally finding its nich in politics? What are your stipulations that must be met before you actually read inquiries from constituents?
Please pardon my poor spelling skills (I am an engineer, not a writer).
--
Re:Taxes and the Internet (Score:2)
Ohio... introduced a "Voluntary" tax on Interenet purchases. ...I have been informed... that I have to pay this tax, reguardless.
IANAAccountant
Are you referring to the Ohio Use Tax? (IT-1040 line 16 or IT-1040 EZ line 11) That tax has been around since 1936. It was originally passed to allow Ohio to collect sales tax on catalog purchases. Retailers are generally only required to collect sales tax if they have a "presence" within the state. If they do not have a presence, then the Ohio resident is responsible for paying the use tax (which exactly equals the sales tax) when they file. Applying this law to Internet purchases is perfectly reasonable.
Speaking of Scientology... (Score:2)
to save time: qrpff (Score:2)
#!/usr/bin/perl
# 472-byte qrpff, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz <sipb-iap-dvd@mit.edu>
# MPEG 2 PS VOB file -> descrambled output on stdout.
# usage: perl -I <k1>:<k2>:<k3>:<k4>:<k5 > qrpff
# where k1..k5 are the title key bytes in least to most-significant order
s''$/=\2048;while(<>){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT ="C*",_) [20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@
b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV
|256|$b[3];Q=Q>>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>1 2^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))<<17,O=O>>8^(E&
^S*8^S<<6))<<9,_=(map{U=_%16orE^=R^=11 0&(S=(unqT,"\xb\ntd\xbz\x14d")[_/16%8]);E
^=(72,@z=(64,72,G^=12*(U-2?0:S&17)),H^=_%64?12
)+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D -HO- U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval
Region-less Representatives? (Score:5)
Do you think the possibility of the creation of region-less senators or represenatives exists?
Except in the case of local or state govenments, it seems unnecessarilty arbitrary to elect representatives by state.
AFAIK, it'd be easier to get region-free DVD players than representatives.
DeCss (Score:2)
It appears to me that the public-at-large's perception is that the sole use of DeCss is to make illegal copies of DVD content (if they're aware of it at all). It certainly is the popular medias and many politicians perception. I've read in the press, a number of times, that DeCss is used to de-crypt DVDs. While this is true, the connotation is wrong. Only twice can I recall that it was written that DeCss was used to create software to play DVDs.
There seems something profoundly unfair in allowing an industry to sell a product in the marketplace and place restrictions on it's lawful use. I can't understand what the movie studios have to gain from limiting HOW their content is played.
Is it your belief that DMCA was applied correctly in this case? If not, what changes to DMCA would you like to see being made and how much support from other legislators do you have?
How do you keep up? (Score:5)
Overall cluefulness? (Score:5)
Today, people may argue with a lot of the laws being passed but it seems to me that at least lawmakers now understand what it is that they're trying to control - that it's not television and that it's not inside the United States. Is that perception correct? Do most members of the House and Senate at least have a rough idea of what the internet is? Do all of them at least have a high-ranking staffer who does?
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Internet Taxation (Score:3)
Online Privacy (Score:3)
How do you feel on-line privacy should be addressed?
Through guidelines, or legislation and regulation? If the latter, what would you like to see included in such legislation and what type of enforcement mechanism should be used to maintain such laws?
Thank you,
-nowt
What non-US citizens can do to preserve freedom (Score:2)
Yes, there is. First, you have to take off your non-US head that says "don't sue". Put on a US-head that says "sue anything that moves". We don't understand anything else, and will ignore any other methods.
So, sue for your rights. Sue over US corporations using your personal information without your permission, if you're a citizen of the EU or Canada.
Then we'll pay attention and fix the problem.
But not before
Microsoft's Education (Score:4)
Do the majority of legislators have an opinion on open source or free software? If so is this opinion negative or positive. What's the best way advocates of open source software can get their opinions heard when the 'closed source' companies such as Microsoft have so much 'Soft Money' to throw around?
Somebody please MOD THIS GUY UP! (Score:2)
OK,
- B
--
Re:Taking back the 'Net (Score:2)
And secondly, yes, this is exactly how I address a United States Congressman. If the relationship is unclear, allow me to spell it out for you: He works for us, and however much I might like Representative Boucher's enlightened approach to technical issues, I don't feel the need to couch my deep and irate dissatisfaction with the poor practices and performance of the U.S. Congress in genteel terms.
Further, I'm interested to see how he responds - will he dodge the issue, or address it? Whether you're too shy or cowardly to bring it up to a Congressman's face or not, well-monied special interests do buy legislation, and that is a problem. Since I personally get screwed out of tax dollars and civil liberties when this happens, I don't think I'm out of line to bring up the issue in a plain-spoken manner and ask that it be addressed.
That, and today I'm just in the mood to take advantage of the First Amendment while it still exists in substantially it's current form. So go screw, Miss Manners.
OK,
- B
--
Re:Taking back the 'Net (Score:2)
Yes, I did. Most of them are. I still don't understand why you think I should be dishonest in my assessment of the performance of people whose services I am paying for. I simply won't lie about it, and I won't treat them like porcelain figurines just because they happen to be elected officials. They put their pants on the same way the rest of us do...
Try telling a salesman, "Most of you guys cheat the customer" and see what kind of service you get.
On the other hand, a good and self-examining Congressperson (or salesman, for that matter) might actually have noted the problem and be willing to take pains to differentiate himself from the pack.
The fact of the matter is, if he's honest and even half wise, then logically he should understand the question, not take it personally and address the issue. If he balks, then that doesn't mean he's dishonest, but might suggest that he hasn't thought through (or does not wish to think through) what is probably the single largest issue that concerned and engaged citizens have with the U.S. Congress.
OK,
- B
--
Legislative guidelines (Score:5)
Thanks for your time,
- Brad Heintz
--
Taking back the 'Net (Score:5)
Many American citizens, unfortunately, don't have sufficient education or interest to be able to assess how technology legislation affects them, their wallets, and the media they consume, and the mainstream media don't help them understand the technical issues, the legislative process, or the influence of money in politics any better.
My question related to this is: What can the more technically-aware citizenry do to steer the law back to a more reasonable course? How can we convince or coerce our elected representatives into replacing sane limits on copyright, sane policy toward retail taxation in digital markets, and a sane approach to regulating the Internet that recoginizes the opportunites and limitations inherent in the medium?
Thanks,
- Brad Heintz
--
why US regulation? (Score:2)
Why does a US politician decide on the internet? I always thought that the net spread beyond the US...
Wouldn't it be good to have global legislation? United Nations maybe(hmmm maybe not)?
Copyright laws (Score:5)
e-Rate, Federal strings and censorship (Score:3)
What is your opinion of the "Gore tax", aka the e-rate Internet access subsididy? Specifically, how do you view:
- The fairness of the tax on telephone users;
- The value obtained for the money distributed via the tax;
- The various bills pending to attach strings (such as Internet filtering) to this money?
Would we be better off eliminating the e-rate and getting rid of the subsidies and strings, or is this worth trying to fix the problems while keeping the busybodies in check?--
spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!